Yesterday, I missed something big. The Pet Parade, one of the highlights of the Port Townsend, WA, Rhododendron Festival, happens the third Thursday in May. The Pet Parade is a charming sea of chaos. The staging area in front of the fire station is jammed with dogs,...

Forty-one years ago I was a small-town high school sophomore. Our school district wasn’t prosperous; levies had failed repeatedly and funds were tight. Miraculously, in 1973, money was allotted to produce a spring musical. This hadn’t happened in decades and students...

Hello! I'm back at my desk after another installment of "Chasing Hoosegow Matley," the story of a cat with more talent for dramatic escapes than Harry Houdini. It’s been awhile since I’ve made a blog appearance all on my lonesome. Many thanks to poets Lynn Kopelke,...

I met poet and novelist Janice Gilbertson in 2014, at the Western Writers of America conference in Sacramento, CA. We were both new to the group, there to pitch our first western novels. We immediately became friends and formed a two-woman support system. We’ve...

I first met Clark Crouch, Poet Lariat and Sandhill Sage, at the Spirit of the West Cowboy Gathering in Ellensburg, WA, 2005. He and his wife, Barbara, introduced themselves after a Nevada Slim & Cimarron Sue show. We’d touched a chord with them with one of our...

I first met Doris Daley at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, 2007. For me, she sets the gold standard for entertainers: poised, beautifully spoken, gracious, professional, funny and highly entertaining. To see Doris perform is to know that she embodies...